The Diary Of ?
by AtheneMiranda
Summary: A diarist on a lonely mountaintop...but who?


**A.N.** Another Layer Of Harmony...and this time, it's a challenge! WHOSE DIARY IS THIS? The first person to work it out can tell me whose Diary I shall write NEXT. Is there a bit-parter whose story you'd like to hear? A question you need answering, or a location you love enough to want the local moogle to speak out on? Even a major character you yearn to see inside, or an in-game moment that deserves immortalising? Well, you can choose one...IF you can solve this little puzzle...heehee...

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_The Diary Of ???   
Day One._

I think I like this place. There's something about its quiet beauty that appeals to me. It seems this stillness and hidden light awakens some past emotion deep inside my soul. What that would be, I have no idea. A vague shape - sleek and willowy - and half a sensation, an aura of courage and perseverance remain in my mind like the tantalising aftertaste of a sweet, ripe fruit.

The lake below me ripples as I kick a rock into the clear waters, out and out in tiny waves, like the pattern in my mind that torments me so, the words that should make me recollect some scene or some presence but do not. They strike the bank in my memory and dissipate, gone forever. Perhaps there is some tiny space where a trickle of meaning could still slip through, one complete link whereby I shall one day know myself again. I feel close to it in the cool of the mountains. So close I can almost touch it, almost sure I could find all I have lost had I just the right trigger, the right cue, the name that eludes me continually. I dread that I may leave this place with my questions still unanswered; nowhere else on Gaia has brought me to the same brink of recollection in all my travels. This feels like my last chance.

There is a sign nearby, a crude scratching on a board fixed loosely to an old oak tree by a rusty nail. 'Pinnacle Rocks'. A name for this quiet pass? It suits it. I have no name I know of. I sit here at the height of these Pinnacles, looking down upon vast reaches of land and water. The lakes below trickle in and out of each other. The green slopes beyond the mountains. Clouds above me, other clouds below, the light behind and the darkness ahead - I can see my reflection in the water. And perhaps I see my soul reflected in the flows of Gaia as they whirl around this landscape. Thin paths lead down the hills toward some vast city on the horizon. I know it not. There is an inevitability about the descent of those paths that will soon lead me away into the cities and valleys beyond this haven. Destiny. White clouds overhead, then this moment in the mountains, so clear and sharp and just nearly what I search for. The thin roads guiding me to an inescapable future. Dark clouds in the deep valleys beyond. Destiny, the one road I can still walk down. Had I a name or even a fragment of precious memory I could turn away and walk a path of my own. Self; I have no self left, if I ever had any, if I ever had anything more than that creature of strange grey light, shrouded in honour and veiled in bravery that once walked beside me as I walked the world. We had a purpose, some sacred duty that fulfilled me as I fulfilled it.

Purpose flew away with my shattered memories and left my shell as driftwood on Gaia's streams. Forward with destiny is ever the way of a man who knows no way to turn off his path.

I see many people in my travels, the maidens who gather wildflowers, the men who herd goats or sheep, the gypsy-children who wander the roads, and compared to me their power is unimaginable. The least of the beggars on the highroad has a name to call upon and draw upon - I have my deadly lance and my sturdy armour and my still undaunted courage but this is nothing when I cannot choose my direction! Oh for a name, for a past, for a cause or a consequence!

A tiny hollow straw drifts down the lake and is carried turbulently over the rocks. It tumbles off down the thin outlet waterfall. A tear streaks down my cheek.

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End file.
